


on this full moon night (the stars weren't shining)

by almadeamla



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-17 00:12:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14176386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almadeamla/pseuds/almadeamla
Summary: AU of season 2. The night he kills Otis to save Carl, Shane leaves. Glenn goes along for the ride.





	on this full moon night (the stars weren't shining)

**Author's Note:**

> This is another old fic I'm reviving. It's mostly finished. I plan to finish the second half as well. I started this long ago with the intention to tell the epic love story of Shane and Glenn.

Glenn wakes to the sound of a car door opening. To the crunch of gravel under a heavy boot. 

He sits up, hunched in one of Hershel’s armchairs, washed in the low glow of the lamplight, and heads out onto darkened the porch.

He finds Shane loading his duffel into the back of his new car. Shane’s creeping, walking on eggshells, weight on his toes, and he shuts the trunk careful and slow. Glenn’s flashlight refracts warped off the back of Shane’s shaved head. Shane sheared himself close, like a fingernail down to the quick, pink and tender skin.

It’s a good look for him, Glenn thinks. Works nicely, with the broadness of his shoulders and span of his back.

“Shane?” he asks and his voice is quiet, low. He knows what it looks like. What it is.

Shane packing up his things and getting ready to go. To leave them behind. Glenn wants to ask about Lori and Rick, how they’ll react to it. What Carl will say when he’s better and Shane is gone. Glenn’s noticed that between all of them—the family things. They fit well together, like a puzzle with every piece.

“Go back inside,” Shane says. Shane doesn’t turn around to look at him. He puts both arms on the side of his car and takes a breath. “Go on, Glenn.”

“You’re leaving.” He doesn’t like the way the words come together in the air. Shane leaving after all the death and loss of the past few days. They’re dwindling down to nothing. Soon they’ll be nothing but teeth and bone.

Shane doesn’t try to make excuses. His shoulders are slumped, tensed beneath his shirt, but it’s the confrontation, Glenn knows, the sharp edge to his voice. It’s not what he’s saying that matters to Shane. It’s how he says it, the volume and the pitch. They both look toward the house, lit up like a jack o’ lantern on the inside, windows and screen door for the eyes and teeth.

“It’s better this way.” Shane’s eyes when he looks at him. Shane’s eyes, dark and distant like a shadowed moon. “For all of us.”

Glenn knows—grit of Shane’s jaw and clench of teeth—that it isn’t true. He doesn’t know for sure, couldn’t, Shane is as much of a mystery to him as the whole undead plague, but in his heart he knows Shane didn’t really want to go. Shane knows, better than any of them, the chance he stands on his own.

“Let me come with you,” he says, so fast he surprises himself. So out of the blue. What comes out of his mouth isn’t even close to what he’s thinking. That used to get him in trouble in the real world.

“S’cuse me?” Shane snorts, clipped and condescending laugh. It’s not his skills Shane’s doubting. Glenn can plan and lead and kill, that’s not the problem. It’s Glenn, his whole self, that Shane finds so hilarious.

“You can’t go out there alone. You’ll be dead in a week.” If anyone could survive, though, Glenn would bet everything he has on Shane.

“I’ll take my chances, man.” Shane swings open the driver’s side door. He’s ready to go. Ready to get in the car and drive out of their lives. Shane’s about to fracture what’s left of their group and he can’t stand it. He won’t go through that again. Amy then Jim then Jacqui. Sophia and now Shane too.

“I’ll tell Rick,” he whispers, loud, so Shane knows it. He will. Even if he did keep quiet, he knows deep down he’d spill his guts to someone in the morning. At the first moment Rick asked about Shane. “I’ll get him right now.”

Shane pauses, door open, hand flat across the roof. His back is a flexing line of indecision.

“Get your shit,” Shane says, head bowed. The little sigh he lets out is the sound of defeat.

Glenn sprints back up to the house, skidding through the loosened dirt. He didn’t bring much with him, most of it’s still back in the RV, but he grabs his gun, his machete, the backpack and all the clothes he thought to pack. Three shirts and two pairs of pants aside from what he’s wearing. Not his smartest decision. He keeps glancing out the window, expecting at any moment to see Shane pull away. He’d get Rick in that case, because Rick can handle anything: Carl shot and Sophia lost out in those woods. Rick would go after him. Rick would get Shane to come back.

He has no idea what he’s doing as he slides into the passenger seat. He’s sweating, soaked around the collar of his t-shirt, sauna bubbling beneath his hat. He takes it off and his hair is wet.

He just knows he can’t let Shane go out on his own. The feeling, hot in his belly, is the same one he remembers from Atlanta, watching Rick struggle in the streets. Hero syndrome, if he had to guess. Loyalty, too. Shane drilled that into him their month at the quarry. Shane and his rhetoric about protecting your own.  
Glenn tosses his bag at his feet.

Shane grunts beside him and puts the car in gear. The engine barely makes a sound when Shane turns the keys in the ignition. It’s a benefit of the newer models. Fewer smog emissions and easier for sneaking off.

He watches the lights of the farm flicker in the rearview mirror until they disappear.

-

Glenn rubs his eyes. The sun has baked his head to boiling. It takes him a few moments to remember where he is, blinking as he watches trees and greenery rush past him in a long smear.

“What time is it?” He’s groggy, mouth sour with dried spit. He was drooling against the window in his sleep. He wipes his damp and sticky cheek.

“Morning. Nine, I think.” Shane won’t look at him, one hand on the steering wheel, the other folded so his hand is resting against the side of his head. He licks his lips.

“Where are we going?” Glenn starts digging through the glove compartment immediately. There’s an assortment of maps tucked there. They aren’t like the big ones Dale has in the RV. They’re county to county, not the entire state.

Shane glares over at him, squinting.

“You gonna be asking me questions every thirty seconds? If so man, you can get out right now.”

“ _Sorry_.” He brings one of his legs up and puts his foot against the dashboard. He bends forward until his chin can touch his knee. “You don’t have to be a dick.”

Shane makes a noise at that.

“You’re the one who wanted in on this. Had’ta ride off with me into the sunset.”

“Sunrise,” Glenn corrects, dropping his hand when he sees that Shane’s stare is angry. Annoyed. “It was dark so…sunrise, technically.”

“You’re the one who wanted to ride off into the _sunrise_.” Emphasis on it that time, flat like Shane’s making fun of him. He probably is. Glenn would be making fun of himself too. Him and his stupid nervous mouth. “Least you can do is shut up and let me drive.”

-

They stop for the night about twenty miles down the road from the Greene’s for the night. They keep having to pause to clear cars from the road and they stop at the first town Glenn finds on the map. It’s a quaint place, not unlike the town back by the farm. The main street is deserted, a few empty cars with doors hanging open driven up onto the sidewalks. There’s a little corner store, a supermarket, pizza parlor and a small boutique. A single dress is hanging in the window, torn off the mannequin at the sleeve.

“Up there.” Shane tips his shotgun at a fire escape leading up the side of a brick building, an office complex advertising the services of Buckland Attorney At Law. “Haven’t seen a walker yet that could climb.”

“It should work.” The walkers in Atlanta had tried but they were too stiff. Too rotten in the hands and the knees.

Shane cups his foot in his hands and gives Glenn a boost. The ladder ends just below the first story, not quite high enough to reach. Glenn has to get to the first part of the platform to extend the ladder the rest of the way down. Then he helps Shane bring up the bags. They empty out the car of everything except what they can’t carry.

The door to the roof is locked from the inside. Shane dusts his hands on his pants and says it’s just as well. One less thing to secure. He busies himself setting up his tent. He ties the four corners of the tent down to old exhaust pipes.

“So what?” Glenn takes off his cap and uses it to fan his face. He wants a drink of water. But the eight jugs of water they took from the truck on the highway need to be rationed, and they’ve both had their quota for the day. All Glenn wants is to wet his hair. He misses the farm and warm showers. “Are we going to live up here? Scout out the town for a place to stay?”

“Fort Benning,” Shane says, one of the tent poles between his teeth while he fits another two together. “Figure we head up that way. Stop often as we need to. Try to build up a good surplus of food and water in case we find a better place.”

“And that’s it?” He wants to probe the issue further. Wants to ask about Lori and Carl and Rick. Shane’s spent most of the day ignoring him and any questions Glenn’s thrown his way. He wants to know why they’re out here risking their lives when they have comfort and safety and people who care waiting at Hershel’s home.

“That’s it.” Shane resumes his tent construction in peace. Glenn helps the best he can, but his idea of camping was dragging a sleeping bag out onto the porch in his backyard. He busies himself with a can opener and serves up a fruit cocktail feast for two.

Shane eats the pears and peaches, but not the pineapple. He steals Glenn’s cherries.

As the sun sets, colors flowing along the horizon like a river, the walkers come out of hiding. Their footsteps echo below in the streets. Glenn jumps with every thump and stumble, with every moan and drag of broken feet. Even Shane looks a little nervous, peeking over once or twice to make sure the fire escape is still secure. Glenn hopes the sunset lasts forever so they never have to leave.

The light begins to dwindle. Snuffs itself out like a candle eating up its wick. Shane unzips his tent and motions for Glenn to crawl inside. They haven’t spoken in hours and the silence weighs heavy on Glenn’s skin.

“Shane,” Glenn whispers once they’re settled in. Shane sleeps on top of his sleeping bag, shirt unbuttoned and open.

“Hm?”

“Why’d you decide to leave?”

Shane doesn’t answer. He’s quiet for so long Glenn thinks he’s asleep. “There wasn’t a place for me.” Then Shane rolls over, face tipped against the side of the tent. His exhale rattles the nylon mesh every time he breathes.

-

They set out exploring the town in the morning. Main Street is mostly deserted just after sunrise. There are only a few lonely walkers ambling along the center of the street. They avoid them without much effort and duck into first grocery store. They go on like that throughout the day, gathering supplies from every shop they see. Their final stop, in twilight hours, is a pharmacy.

Glenn crouches down behind tipped over racks of cold medicine. He pockets a few tablets of aspirin, but most of the supplies are picked clean. Shane’s across the aisle from him, finger pressed to his lips as he motions Glenn forward.

He sprints into the next aisle and goes still. He watches, horror gnawing his belly worse than hunger, as a shriveled hand caresses the limp carcasses of deflated balloons. A walker stands with its back to him, fingers skating the assortment of holiday balloons. He wonders if it’s attracted to the colors or if it’s a phantom memory of birthdays and celebrations.

The walker continues to play with the balloon remnants. Its gray skin contrasts with corn-yellow hair. Closer to marigold, Glenn thinks. Hair that matches the sweet golden of its sundress, what little color he can make out beneath the blood and the dirt. The hem is torn and shredded. The fabric is falling to pieces and he can see: exposed muscle, jagged bone, pink intestine looped somehow around its lowest rib.

“Oh man,” Shane says and then Glenn sees it too.

Something, a skin tone that vaguely resembles flesh, a solid lump, a tiny body, bundled up on the walker’s back. A baby. A baby strapped to its dead mother’s back in a sun-bleached, blood crusted sling. He swallows against a rising sensation of cold.

Glenn splits the walker’s skull open with the first solid swing of his machete. She snarls, exposed brain and blood dribbling from her teeth, and it’s his second blow that kills her. Sinks the blade in deep and feels her go still beneath it, slump forward. She lands crumpled at his feet. He shouldn’t think of her like that, in terms of she and mother, but he can’t help it, can’t forget it, who she used to be, not at the sight of a withered little hand poking out of that sling.

Shane nudges the baby with the toe of his boot. It doesn’t move and Shane pulls down the soiled sling. Glenn has to hold his breath and put his hands on his knees.

The baby is hollowed out from the backside. Walkers got to it, most of it, and most likely gave up once the corpse had started to stink. They didn’t even leave the spinal column, just an empty belly and empty skull and cracked fragments of ribs. Glenn hopes it died quickly, but in his head he pictures the mother, wandering and walking, baby finally dying from the dehydration and the heat. He doesn’t want that to be how it happened.

“I’ve never seen—” He stops to find what he’s trying to say. There aren’t many things he hasn’t seen. “Usually there’s nothing left.”

“Yeah well.” Shane rubs his hand across his head. Glenn listens to the rasp of stubble. “We should keep going.”

The storeroom has been ransacked. Shelves are broken and hanging off the walls. Cans are open and the contents are spilled across the floor. Glenn steps over a puddle of fuzzy peas. There are a few bags of trail mix underneath an overturned display. Glenn can’t fight the pang of disappointment that tightens in his belly when he sees the mix is mostly raisins, a few handfuls of almonds and cashews added in. He hates raisins. Has ever since his mom baked them in cookies and lied to him that they tasted just like chocolate chips.

He stuffs the bags into his backpack while Shane goes into the adjacent aisle. His footsteps are loud, tinkle of glass and shards of metal. Glenn knows even before Shane says it that this expedition was a bust.

“Nothing,” Shane says, scowling, breath hard like it started as a sigh before it left Shane’s throat.

“Not exactly.” He shakes his backpack so Shane can hear the trail mix rattle. “Raisins.”

Shane makes a face. “Man I fuckin’ hate raisins. Rick’s mom used to give ‘em to us as snacks after school. Called ‘em nature’s candy.”

Glenn laughs. He can’t help it, not when he’s picturing a tiny Shane scowling at his after school treat. He wonders if Shane’s mouth scrunched up the same, if his head seemed as dwarfed by his big ears.

There’s a bang and a rattle from the other side of the store. A dozen walkers stagger out of the walk-in freezer one by one. The doors swing on hinges splashed in long dried blood.

“Shit,” Shane says, and they’re hauling ass after, dodging coffee grounds and crushed cardboard boxes to make it back out onto the street.

The walkers moan so loud it reverberates in Glenn’s teeth. “Oh god oh god,” he says over and over. A shadow darkens the doorway, their only exit, and Shane sends the walker blocking their path to freedom toppling backwards with a kick to the knees. There’s more behind that one, though, and Shane slices outwards while Glenn takes a swing at one of the walkers lumbering out of the freezer.

Shane’s machete gets stuck somewhere between the temporal and occipital lobe. Shane jerks it back but the whole skull of the walker comes with it.

Glenn thrusts his machete over Shane’s shoulder. Into a walker’s open mouth. Blood dribbles down the blade and over his hand. It’s startling, the tepid splash across his wrist. It’s nothing like real blood, the stuff pumping so hot inside him and Shane.

“Nice one,” Shane grunts. He puts his heel to the walker’s forehead and uses the force of his foot to help get his machete free.

Three down, nine to go. The walkers at the front of the cluster limp in closer.

Glenn swings his weapon wide before he runs. Shane keeps in stride beside him but it’s not easy. He drags his ankle before he slides it, forces the sprain to bear his weight. Glenn intentionally slows his pace. It’s not worth surviving the walkers if he has to go about the rest of his life alone. And he knows Shane would never leave him, not the only guy around to have his back.

They make it to the car and Glenn throws himself through the door. He presses down the lock. Not that it would make a difference. All a walker has to do is slam through the glass. The sun has almost set on the horizon, it’s low, just a sliver, and in the dimness Shane fumbles to find the right key. But he gets it finally and Shane mows down two walkers as they pull away.

“Where are we going?” he asks as Shane takes a hard left, doesn’t continue on straight. The buildings they pass start to get smaller and smaller, businesses that turn residential, houses getting farther and farther apart. 

“Too dark,” Shane tells him, which isn’t really answer, not to Glenn.

Pitch black now. What’s in the path of the headlights is the only thing Glenn can see. Even the moon isn’t out tonight, hidden by a thick smear of clouds. “We wouldn’t be able to find our way back.”

Shane drives out for maybe a mile, through the parking lot of an elementary school, off a path and into the woods. He parks the Hyundai behind a big bush, line of trees, and cuts the lights. They’re swallowed up by the darkness.

“I think we’ll be alright.” Shane turns to him, looking for his opinion—a consensus, no more of what Shane says always goes. Like Glenn’s allowed to help make decisions now too. “Doubt they’re any better at seeing than we are. Maybe worse.”

Glenn pictures a walker. Pupils dilated and irises foggy blue.

“That sounds right.” Right as anything. Right as the way Shane grins, one corner of his mouth turned up, showing just a hint of teeth.

He’s hungry and most of their supplies are back on the rooftop. The rations they’d been saving; the pack of crackers he’d been looking forward to since breakfast. All they have on them are a few protein bars in the glove compartment (emergency only) and what he’s got in his pack. A lot of the supplies they’d gathered had been practical—batteries, motor oil, bandages, and a few gallons of gasoline. All very valuable, but no good to eat.

He opens the first bag of trail mix, rooting around so what he shakes out into his palm is mostly nuts. They crack loudly between his teeth.

Shane digs out a handful and pops everything in his mouth, no complaints, chewing and he doesn’t even blink. Glenn has to struggle just to force himself to swallow. He’s not hungry enough he’ll eat anything. He hasn’t been that starving since before he joined the camp Shane established at the quarry. Having enough to settle his stomach is something he associates with Shane, now more than ever, the two of them eating right out of the bag.

The almonds and cashews are salted and he’s only finished a few bites before he’s thirsty, almost no saliva left in his mouth. It’s not the best thing to eat when you’re trying to conserve your water.

“Here,” Shane croaks, voice sounding as dry as Glenn’s feels as he hands over a water bottle he’s dug out from beneath his seat. The water inside his hot, so gross he can barely drink it. He swishes some around in his mouth and passes it back to Shane. Just like with the trail mix, Shane drinks without complaining, jaw set as he screws on the cap.

He’d assumed they’d stay in the front seats the entire night like that, sleeping in shifts, crooked spines and stiff necks. He hadn’t thought they’d be doing this, climbing into the back together, making more room by folding over the passenger seat as far as it will go, driver’s seat tilted forward at an awkward angle. It’s oddly comfortable.

Their shoulders touch but the backseat isn’t cramped. Shane props up his feet, kicks the boot off his twisted ankle.

“Thanks for earlier.”

“Huh?” Glenn asks, wishing that every conversation he has with Shane didn’t make him feel like an idiot. He always comes off sounding like a kid.

“You saved my ass back there.” Shane mimes out his machete getting stuck in the walker’s skull.

“Oh, yeah. You’re welcome, but you don’t need to thank me for that. It wasn’t anything you wouldn’t do for me.”

Shane squints out the window. “Still.” Shane reaches out for him. The gesture is surprising. Glenn can count on one hand the number of times Shane’s ever touched him. It’s startling when Shane’s hand settles on his chest, right in his solar plexus. Shane’s fingertips and his palm burn through Glenn’s shirt like flame.

“What, uh, what are you doing?”

Glenn’s breath catches in his throat as Shane settles into the open v of his legs. Shane’s hand on his chest pushes him along even further. Back and back until his spine is against the door.

“Shane?” he asks, head tilted back into the window. The curve of his skull slides against the glass.

“Shh,” Shane shushes, licks his lips. Glenn’s face flushes. “Just relax.” Shane punctuates the words with wet kisses to Glenn’s belly. Wide, mouth open. He shudders with every flick of Shane’s tongue into his navel. “Lemme thank you proper.”

“Shane I don’t—” There’s no more room for arguments after. Shane tugs the waist of his jeans downward and then he’s got his mouth on Glenn, fine and wet as he takes him deep.

Glenn’s hands scrabble at Shane’s head and try to find a grip. But there’s nothing there for him to hold onto though, only his fingers pressing into Shane’s scalp, shoving him down so Glenn can get in deeper. Every thought Glenn’s ever had has narrowed to the hot slide of Shane around him, the slide and press of his tongue and mouth, working in counterpoint until Glenn’s arching up and fucking Shane’s face with sharp pumps of his hips.

Shane’s hands hold his thighs apart and open. When Glenn comes, every muscle trembling, Shane’s fingers grip him tighter. It’s nice, Glenn thinks, riding the precipice of pleasure, having someone to anchor him in place.

He’s not sure what to expect after. Shane doesn’t say much and he doesn’t ask for reciprocation. He just washes his mouth out with a little bit of water and says he’ll wake Glenn up when it’s his turn to sleep.

-

Glenn’s awake at sunrise. He watches the sky lighten, colors stretching outward from the horizon. It’s pretty—the trees serenely shadowed and Shane’s skin washed the color of marigolds, before everything is fully encompassed in light. 

“Sun’s up,” Glenn says, nudging Shane’s shoulder. “Should we head back?”

Shane yawns and stretches as far as he can before his hands hit the roof of the car. 

“Yeah. Let’s grab our shit and get going. I don’t much feel like sticking around here after all that.”

They drive again, Shane at the wheel. Glenn wonders when he’ll stop feeling like a passenger, like Shane is some crazy train he’s riding, a journey with no end in sight. He picks another town on the map, this one smaller than the last. He figures smaller towns means fewer people, fewer chances of the undead.

Glenn feels a compulsion to take charge. To _do_ something. He wants to help like he did yesterday, be useful, show Shane that he’s more than a kid he’s saving. He points out a café that is also an apartment.

“Places like that, usually the only way into the living space is through the back of the bakery where the employees go. It should be easier to defend than somewhere with lots of windows or a big stairwell.”

Shane shrugs. “Lead the way.”

Inside is clear. They step over the shards of broken coffee cups. There are molding pastries still on display, but not much blood or carnage. Glenn thinks that a little place like this probably evacuated before things got too untenable. He guides Shane through the back, to the door marked _employees only_ , and they walk carefully up the tiny stairwell.

There’s no one here alive or dead. They lock the ground level door, then the apartment one behind them. It’s small, two rooms and a little kitchen. There’s some canned food in the pantry, rotten food in the refrigerator. They go check out the bedroom next.

The sheets are unmade. Whoever lived here left in a hurry. There’s a train of clothes leading to the doorway like a suitcase spilled open. Shane goes digging through the closet and holds up something after a minute, smiling. It’s two water bottles. The special kind, designed for hiking. They have a built-in filter that extends down the middle of the bottle. They’re His and Her’s in gender specific colors.

“Come have a drink,” Shane says.

Glenn’s not sure how to feel about it, sitting with Shane on a dead couple’s bed.

Shane tosses one to him and the water inside sloshes.

“You can have the pink one.”

Glenn rolls his eyes “Gee thanks.”

Shane waggles the blue bottle at him and takes a swig.

“Pink wouldn’t go with my boots.”

“But they’re black, black goes with everything,” he says, realizing as soon as it’s left his mouth what Shane tricked him into. “You’re such an asshole. Oh my god.”

Shane smiles. “So I’ve been told.”


End file.
